RICHMOND, Va.—When Grayson “Sonny” Miller was just a small child, his mother left him in the care of his grandmother. By the time he was 13, he had run away from home, learned how to live on the streets, and knew how make a deal. And his life of crime began.
Miller tells a compelling story of crime, drugs, and jail time, but most of all, he tells a story of a life he is just now beginning to live.
Miller currently serves as church custodian for North Run Baptist Church in Richmond, Va. According to Miller, however, the journey to his “new family” was 21 years in the making.
Sonny Miller’s notes for his sermon at North Run Baptist Church were handwritten on ruled paper.
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Miller was 14 when he was arrested for the first time. After that, the arrests and charges came frequently—at 16, 19, 23, 25, 27, 30, and on—with charges ranging from robbery to distribution of cocaine. Miller has spent a total of 21 years behind bars serving various sentences. He has 17 arrests and nine felony convictions to his name. By any accounts, his rap sheet tells the story of a troubled man.
But Miller would beg to differ. His wake up call from God came in 2006, and he’s been clean ever since. Miller underwent triple bypass surgery in July 2006. He turned to his family and friends for help, but before long, Miller was back on the street. By December 2006, he was back in jail.
“I decided [while I was in jail] to give it all up and surrender. I got in a fight [in jail] trying to help an 18-year-old kid. Guys were going to jump him,” Miller said. “In prison you mind your own business, but I just couldn’t do it.”
Miller sprang to the boy’s defense. Before he knew it, he had a broken right hand and torn ligaments in his right knee. After that fight, he made the decision to start attending Bible study with chaplain Woody Fischer at the Henrico County’s Regional Jail West.
“When I realized how people thought of me, I decided I would never do something to bring shame to myself again,” Miller said.
In 2009, Miller was moved to the Caroline County Correctional Unit #2, a low security prison. There he met North Run Baptist’s prison ministry team, including Dean Wikowsky and Bob Osborne.
“Mr. Osborne told me, ‘If you ever make it out, write me.’ And I did,” Miller said.
Miller was transferred to Henrico’s Regional Jail East, located in New Kent County, where he participated in Rise, a rehabilitation program. Following his release, he lived at Rubicon, a substance abuse and mental health facility in Richmond. It was after his release that he attended North Run for the first time on March 22, 2010.
A month later, Miller shared his testimony.
Pastor Tom Gaskins remembers that day.
“I felt, how could this man have been through all of that and have such a faith and be with us today? How can a black guy walk into a white church and have that kind of faith?” Gaskins said. “He calls us family. I remember a tingling feeling listening to him; it was electrifying.”
Miller continues to share his story throughout the area when asked—including at an upcoming service at North Run. At his home church, he volunteers every Sunday night with the church youth group and can often be found assisting those in need.
“I am blessed,” Miller said. “I made a deal with God when I had open heart surgery and was dealing with being locked up. I promised God that if he gave me the strength to get through this, I would serve him the rest of my life.
“When God done moved in your life, it’s one of the most blessed things you can experience. To know God for yourself, it’s a wonderful thing,” Miller continued. “Things that happened in my life, God is so good! So good to take the crack pipe out of a man’s hand and replace it with the Bible. He took the taste of alcohol and heroin out of my mouth and put his love in my heart.”
Miller credits men like Gaskins and Osborne for being a great influence on his life.
“Pastor Tom is the most humblest man I’ve ever met in my life,” Miller said. “And Mr. Bob Osborne is like a father to me. Everything he’s told me has been the truth. He believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself.”
Miller also draws strength from the oldest member of the congregation, Dorothy Bowles.
“When I see her at the tender young age of 94, knowing her struggles, seeing her determination to walk without help, I find strength in that drive,” Miller said. “She is a walking testimony. If she can do it, I ought to be here opening the door for her.”
Miller credits God for both his job and for the trust of the North Run family. He believes it is only through the love of God and his love in the church family that the congregation can “trust someone like me with my background.”
March 1 marked a year of service for Miller at North Run. Gaskins reflected on how the job came to be. “I remember it was discussed in the church office. It was a God thing. Several of us felt this would be a marvelous thing to offer him an opportunity to get his life straightened out with employment,” Gaskins said.
Miller can now be found cleaning the church halls instead of running the street. He sings everywhere he goes. His robust, cheerful bass booms throughout the hallways.
He has many reasons to sing, he says. “That my church can trust someone like me with the keys to the church, [that God allowed] my church family to love me as a child of God instead of judging me.
“God is so good. He took a dope fiend, a sleeny, slippery, slimy dope fiend like me and cleaned me up and put me in a church family where the pastor asked me to get a message together and stand behind the sacred desk of God and share it with my church family.”
Miller plans to remind his church family in his message that “God can do for you what you can’t do yourself, but only when you totally surrender.”
Heidi Hurt Craft teaches journalism at Atlee High School in Mechanicsville, Va.